The present embodiments relate to medical diagnostic ultrasonic imaging, and in particular, to systems that adapt acoustic output power.
In some ultrasound imaging, the transmit power is to be set as low as possible to ensure patient safety, such as for implementing the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) principle. For example, fetal imaging and TEE imaging (especially pediatric) use ALARA.
Fetal imaging often uses harmonic imaging modes. Since the image quality of a harmonic image may vary significantly with patient body type, the ideal transmit power setting may not be pre-determined in the factory. The user manually adjusts the transmit power on each and every patient until image quality is just acceptable. Adjusting transmit power on each patient to find the ideal value is time consuming and hinders workflow.
Transmit power automation has been used in other settings. Signal-to-noise ratios are used to automatically determine transmit power. Even with good signal-to-noise ratio, the harmonic image quality may be significantly degraded if the fundamental signal leakage into the harmonic information is strong.